


Ciphertext

by somewhereelse



Series: Guidelines for Reintroduction [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 10:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16852321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhereelse/pseuds/somewhereelse
Summary: Interlude between 7.07 and 7.08.After his release, Oliver has trouble decrypting Felicity.





	Ciphertext

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that episode was some bullhockey.
> 
> This is what happens when I have to sit through cyber security training.

Oliver stared at his phone, puzzled.

The text from Felicity didn’t make sense. A long string of numbers and letters that almost looked like encryption. But this was a text message and not a data dump off a USB drive he had plugged into a villain’s computer so her preloaded software could do its thing.

There was no reason for her text to be _encrypted_.

He tapped the space to reply, about to ask if she had pocket-texted him or whatever the equivalent of a butt-dial was. Except he couldn’t. No, a little window popped up, prompting him for a password.

_Shit._

Hadn’t he seen a headline or heard a Felicity-rant about this? What was it called? Ransomware?

Felicity would never forgive him if he somehow managed to download a virus or let a hacker backdoor their way into the very, very secure system she had spent months building and years honing for their nocturnal activities.

No, better to just throw the phone in the bay and claim to have lost it so she could remotely wipe it. He could endure a lecture about that kind of carelessness much better than one about cyber security.

But then a text from John came in, the notification popping up at the top of the screen. On instinct, Oliver switched over and was surprised when his phone operated normally. He responded then checked his email, his workout app, maps, and just about everything else that seemed to be perfectly fine.

The message from Felicity, though, was still incomprehensible and still prompting him for a password.

With sudden clarity, he remembered the question Felicity had asked him that morning. “Do you want to play a game?” she taunted. Bless her, she was naked and wet in the shower when she asked so, yes, he wanted to play all the games. He nodded enthusiastically in response and promptly forgot the initial question.

Apparently, she didn’t.

Oliver pursed his lips and considered his options. Even knowing it wouldn’t work, he tried her birthday. The error message flashed before switching back to the password prompt. Hell, he hoped there were unlimited attempts. He’d never live it down if he couldn’t figure out Felicity’s tease in ten tries or whatever it was. A slew of important dates followed, locations of _memorable_ days and nights, inside jokes and favorite sayings. When he exhausted his memory and was ready to bang his head against a tree, he hit the call button. She answered before the second ring.

“Hi.”

The simple greeting bubbled up through the speaker and had a corresponding effect on the corners of his mouth.

“Hi,” he returned lowly, none of the frustration of a moment ago bleeding through.

“Hmm,” Felicity sounded appreciative but contemplative, “That sounds only moderately happy. You haven’t cracked it?”

Oh thank God. The message was actually her. If it really had been some phishing scheme, they would have gotten all his possible password combinations.

“No,” he sulked and could feel her amusement through the phone.

Felicity hummed happily. “You’ll get there, hon.” Encouraging, as always.

“And how happy do you expect me to be when I do?” Oliver posed the obvious follow-up.

She was quiet for a long moment, building the suspense intentionally or not, before replying with a throaty, “Very.”

Oliver cursed roughly in Russian and regretted it when she flipped the switch back to adorable with a sparkling laugh. “You’re evil,” he groaned pathetically.

“Oh, I’m your worst nightmare,” Felicity reassured him. Her voice floated away towards the end of the taunt, and he knew he was losing her attention to whatever she was doing. He wouldn’t hang up though, not until she actually signed off. “Oliver, you still there?”

He murmured in response, and she continued. “Do you know if we have a stud finder?”

Choking, he managed to ask, “Is that... Is that a come on?”

“No, I mean for real,” she scoffed as if her accidental innuendos weren’t a part of their every day lives. “I’m hanging new curtains. I need to anchor the rods so I need a stud finder.”

“Why do you need to anchor the rods?” he repeated slowly. Felicity was a genius at a good many things, but he’d never known her to show an interest in home renovation. Even all those times she rebuilt and re-outfitted their bases, she happily contracted out the actual construction part of the work.

Deadpan, she answered, “Because they’re heavy?”

Growing up in the Queen mansion, Oliver knew a thing or two about heavy curtains. Full-length, blackout velvet or brocade curtains made the perfect cover for hiding behind before he was caught with his pants down. He just couldn’t imagine what Felicity intended to do with curtains like those in their carefully nondescript apartment.

“What the hell kind of curtains did you get?” His question was more incredulous than anything, and Felicity was clearly too preoccupied to take offense.

“Chainmail,” was the _duh_ response. “Oh, hey, I found one. I’ll let you finish your run. Text me when you’re almost home. Love you.”

 

* * *

 

The alarm beeped as he entered. Locking the door behind him, he turned to the panel and entered the code Felicity sent him then pressed his thumb to the fingerprint scanner. Odd, when last night she had the system set to facial recognition.

“Hey, I’m home,” he called into the bedroom, noting that the bathroom door was closed and muffled her response.

Taking advantage of the momentary solitude, Oliver went to inspect the brand new curtains. They were a bluish color he associated with Felicity’s townhouse, the one she lived in when they first met, and the recognition almost made him smile. Then he rubbed the fabric together, feeling the layer of chainmail concealed between, and frowned instead.

Felicity made some noise as she approached. Regretfully, her collection of high heels had either been lost during witness protection or... Well, he wasn’t sure what the alternative was, but ever since his release, she consistently wore sneakers or sturdy boots, like the ones the Black Canaries—and he meant each of Sara, Laurel, and Dinah—favored in the field. When she was barefoot at home, the near-forgotten click of heels no longer announced her arrival. Come to think of it, her never-ending supply of dresses had also diminished, and she was favoring these black pants that highlighted her ass wonderfully so he wasn’t going to complain _at all_ , but it was still so very different. As different as having medieval armor in their home.

“What’s with the chainmail?” he asked after she’d looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down, down, down for a kiss.

Felicity rolled her eyes. “Kevlar, too. People really like shooting through our windows. I figure we could at least try to have a line of defense.”

Oliver couldn’t find the fault in her logic, especially not when she was scratching her nails through his growing hair. “And the alarm? I thought you set it to facial recognition.”

“I reconsidered,” her hands left his head to gesture in the air, and he nearly whined, “With people like Christopher Chance running around, there’s the possibility for error. Two-factor authentication is much more secure. I’ll show you how to use the app to get the code because I’m going to set it to randomize every thirty seconds. Between that and the fingerprint scanner, there’s a slim risk of anyone who shouldn’t get in getting in. Although, I guess if someone chopped your hand off, they could access your phone, get the code, _and_ use it on the fingerprint scanner. Hmm, I’ll have to give that more thought. Maybe a retina scan instead. I mean, what are the chances someone takes your eye and your hand? It’d be like a Slade Wilson-Malcolm Merlyn two-fer.”

“Felicity?” he broke in, mildly concerned by her train of thought. She jerked slightly then refocused, meeting his gaze with innocent curiosity. “Can we stop talking about the times I relieved people of their body parts?”

“Sure?” Her disappointed pout was incongruous, given how much she didn’t like either of those men and would gladly never have them darken their city again, but so tempting that he couldn’t help but lean down, press his lips to her pursed ones, and slip his tongue in.

When they parted, Felicity had a knowing grin on her lips. “You couldn’t crack it, huh?” Somehow, she must have been able to taste his frustration with her game.

“Are you really that surprised?” he complained, “You didn’t even give me a hint.”

“Something you would never use,” she answered readily, and he rolled his eyes. Yeah, that really narrowed it down for him. “Emojis, you prehistoric dinosaur. The password was just a heart emoji.”

“Oh,” Oliver brightened slightly. He never would have guessed that but he liked that Felicity still made it about (their) _love_. “Do I need to get my phone, or are you going to show me what’s in the text?” If his hands trailed down her back to her backside, it was pure coincidence.

She swatted his hands off her ass then grabbed one, using it to tug him towards the kitchen. “Not that kind of dirty, mister, but somehow I think you’ll actually be excited by this, too.”

“Ta-da,” she made an elaborate flourish towards the sink, “I did the dishes. Get it? Emoji, something you would never use, and sponge, something you thought I didn’t know how to use.”

“Very impressive,” he ignored her teasing for the moment, “and _thank you_.”

Weirdly, they had a squabble last night about the chore and how Felicity kept piling up random mugs and dishes in the sink. It wasn’t like her, not unless she was on a hacking binge, but apparently she’d been on her own long enough that old habits were settling back in. And after months of having all of two prized possessions to his name, Oliver couldn’t abide the clutter. Felicity launched off a comment about his wet-towel-dry-bed habit, and then they came together in a clash of teeth and tongues and stopped caring about the stupid dishes.

It was yet another compromise, another sacrifice, Felicity made for him. She deserved to win their first argument after his release. Hell, she deserved to win all the arguments in the foreseeable future for putting up with his incarceration and everything that came with it, working to get him out, and still loving his dumb ass.

He was in the middle of approaching her to show the extent of his gratitude when a stray thought occurred to him. ”But why’d you have to encrypt _that?_ I thought it was something... you know...”

“Sexy?” she finished with a teasing lilt. “Sorry to disappoint, but the no nude photos rule still applies. I just wanted to test it. Encryption or a password would be another layer of protection for the two-factor authentication app. I mean, normally strong passwords are random and include a mix of types of characters so if I could get it to recognize emojis, then that would be another wildcard to make the passwords stronger.”

Oliver grasped the concept, if not the how of Felicity making that happen. He didn’t doubt that she could make it work. Still, “isn’t that a little overkill?”

“Oliver, if I weren’t completely hopeless with a bow and arrow, our alarm system would be, like, a bunch of randomly bouncing tennis balls you have to shoot in twenty seconds or the apartment blows up.” He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow, and she blew out a heavy sigh before continuing, ”I need this place to be safe, okay? When William comes home, he has to feel safe here. In the last place we tried to make a home, we ended up seconds away from being murdered. I was terrified I couldn’t buy him enough time to run, enough time to not see me die in front of him, and if the security system had just done its stupid job better— Look, I don’t care if this is overkill as long as _we’re_ not killed.”

His eyes widened as he grabbed onto her shoulders, trying to stop the spiral before she could get any further. Felicity immediately froze then melted into him. Automatically, his shoulders hunched down and his arms wrapped around her and his legs widened to trap hers between so he could fully encompass her. Her back bent at what must have been an uncomfortable angle, but she didn’t seem to care, hugging him back just as desperately.

“Felicity, I’m back, I’m _here_ —”

This time, her arms moved to hug herself, forcing unwanted distance between them. She sent him a worrying look before asking, ”What happens when you’re _not?_ ”

He felt like she slapped him, and it must have shown because she immediately shook her head in apology. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant _practically speaking_ when you’re _physically_ not here. You’re going to do what you can, and I’m going to do what I can. And _that’s_ what I can do.” Her thumb hooked over her shoulder in the general direction of the security system panel.

Oliver nodded slowly in acceptance, but it still felt like an out-of-body experience. Felicity always trusted him to keep her safe. Even when they were broken up, she never hesitated to shelter with him, just as he never hesitated to bodily wrap himself around her, as if his mere flesh could protect her from disasters like a nuclear explosion. And now?

Now that trust was deteriorated.

Clearly, Felicity wasn’t going to rely on him like she used to. And that was fine. Some measure of independence and change in a relationship was a good thing, he reminded himself. Of course, he and Felicity had never had to worry about having too similar interests, being kind of the epitome of opposites attract, but this seemed like a bigger, different deal.

“Felicity, are you _okay?_ ”

It was a simple question, but he meant it as so much more. Felicity had been _perfect_ the last week, helping him adjust without a second thought, never flinching in the face of his moodiness. To be fair, her solution for that problem was to just jump his bones so that always ended up being a win-win situation. Suffice it to say, they were so concerned with his readjustment that he hadn’t stopped to fully consider _hers_.

Felicity caught his chin in her hand, her fingers rubbing soothingly through his stubble. He noticed she was doing that more and more to show her appreciation for his not having a beard. “Oliver, you’re home. I haven’t been this okay in a very long while.”

Almost shyly, he smiled. He slid an arm around her waist, hauling her the precious few inches that had come between them. Felicity made a small “oof” as she crashed into his chest, and his smile widened. “I love you, you know that?” he whispered like it was some kind of secret.

She didn’t respond verbally, instead inching up his body slowly until their lips met. Felicity smiled into their kiss, and he steadied the arm around her waist so he could lift her a few more inches and walk into their new bedroom.

It didn’t escape his notice that she hadn’t actually answered his question.

 


End file.
